Friday, November 21, 2014

This was a big week for my debut science fiction/suspense romance Unchained Memory.On Tuesday, UM's beautiful cover was officially revealed for the first time on the USA Today Happy Ever After romance blog.

The cover appeared with a blurb about the book and a short excerpt. You can follow the link above to get all the goodies. But here's the cover--just because we like to look at it!

Also this week, because there comes a time in every professional author's life when this needs to happen, I'm launching my official Facebook author page. Yes, no longer will my writer friends (and potential readers) be subjected to photos of my adorable granddaughter (who just started walking, by the way!) and boring photos of my visit to Aunt Nellie in Waytoheckngone. Now it will be all book stuff all the time! I'll try to make it interesting, I promise! Photos of my cat assistants! Accounts of real alien abductions! And shares of other people's books! (See, THAT got your attention, didn't it, you writers out there!)

Sunday, November 16, 2014

"What's past isprologue" is a standard phrase used to
remind writers not to get too bogged down in backstory. To keep the action
immediate and avoid long passages of infodump about what came before. It’s
common advice bandied about by writers, but I do think it tends to trivialize a
very important building block of the story. The history of the place and the characters are the building blocks of
storytelling.

True, it’s preferable to open the
story in the midst of the action, the middle of a scene already underway, and
with enough tension and intrigue to immediately pull the reader in. You wouldn’t
want to begin your story with a fifteen page diatribe on all that has come before.
(Though it has been done!) Better to hook them with the meat of a juicy scene
to pull them into your world.

But once the characters are
introduced and their hopes, dreams and fears exposed, it’s time to start
hinting at where they came from and what has caused them or their societies to
function the way they do.

The past isn’t just prologue, it’s
an essential thread in a tapestry of effective and believable world building.
Let's look at a couple of popular examples.

The Fantasy books series
turned TV phenomenon Game of Thrones introduces a fully realized world of
kingdoms, ancestral groups, rivalries, traditions and that simple but dark
foreshadowing: Winter is coming.

But winter always comes. Why is
that such a weighty statement?

Because in this world, winter
lasts for years or sometimes even decades. And with the cold and the dark come
the creatures that wreck havoc on this world. The past isn’t prologue, it’s the
whispered talesaround the hearth fires of
what happened during that last long winter and what it could mean for many of
the characters who have never experienced it.

But it’s not just the winter that
conquered and destroyed. There was another terror that once blighted this land,
melting stone, ravaging empires and vaporizing armories.

Once, there were dragons.

These two contrasting dangers are
what give this series its title and resonating theme: A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s a world about to be caught up in a new
chapter of history—an army born of ice from the North, a foe bearing fire from
the south. Men in the middle.

And while we’re on the subject of
Dragons…

Let’s look at Dragonriders of Pern, Anne McCaffrey's
classic.

This epic series opens with the
story of a scullery maid and her unique talents, which leads her to a life in a
Dragonweyr—a society of people who ride fire-breathing dragons. Lessa’s fate is
to become telepathically bonded to the greatest of all dragons, a huge gold queen
named Ramoth.

But it’s later in the series the
reader discovers the rich history of the planet Pern (a name that originated from "Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible") and how and why this
society evolved to begin with. The enemy on this planet is Thread—a horrible
scourge that falls from a red star to burn fields and homes and people. And
only the dragons and their riders can fight it. Because that’s what they were
bred to do centuries before by the human settlers.

Their past isn’t prologue. This civilization
exists now because their ancestors effected genetic engineering of a native
species.

Days of Future Past

I recently finished Forgotten Civilization, a book written
by Dr. Robert M. Schoch, Ph. D. You may not be familiar with Dr. Schoch, but
you’ve probably heard rumblings about one of his most famous theories. He
claims to have scientific proof that The Sphinx in Egypt is far older than the circa
3500 BC date generally accepted as the monument’s age.

In fact, he claims The Sphinx might
be up to 12,000 years old.This theory flies in the face of
convention and threatens to upset our basic understanding of the rise of civilization
as we know it. Or thought we knew it. And on what evidence does Dr. Schoch
base his theory? There seem to be two primary pieces of data.1) The Sphinx shows weathering
that could only be due to decades of heavy rainfalls. Significant amounts rain
that would result in this sort of weathering haven’t fallen on Egypt since
major climate changes over 9,000 years ago. Thus, The Sphinx has to date to
that age or older to show such weathering.2) The head of the Sphinx has
apparently been re-carved and reconstructed. In looking at pictures of the
Sphinx, I have to agree with Dr. Schoch. The human-featured head is completely out
of proportion with the rest of the body. He theorizes the Sphinx may have first
been carved out of rock to resemble a great lion, and it does in fact face due
East, looking toward the vernal equinox and the constellation of Leo.Okay, so what if he’s right? What
if the Sphinx is 12,000 years old?Well, that’s the question isn’t
it? Because we know the ancient Egyptians date back about 5,000 years. So if
they didn’t originally build the Sphinx, who did?When coupled with a more modern
find in Turkey of a site called Gobekli Tepe—also dated to approximately 12,000
years old by some scientists—now we’ve got a real mystery! Gobekli Tepe is a
complex site with great carved stone monoliths and enclosures. It appears the
entire site was completely buried at some point in the distant past—perhaps 8,000
years ago—but if that was done to preserve it or to destroy it, no one is sure.

Could it be that advanced
civilizations existed far longer ago than we realized? And if they did exist,
why is there so little evidence of them now?Maybe because something terrible
happened 12,000 years ago that destroyed civilization except for a few
monuments fashioned of rock.What could have happened that
would so completely wipe out an advanced society?We know that something terrible
did happen at just about 10,000 BC—12,000
years ago. It’s referred to as the Younger Dryas Event, a calamity of some
magnitude that is dated to between 12,800 to 11,500 years ago.
What exactly occurred scientists aren’t sure of and can’t agree on, but there
is evidence that a catastrophic event or events forever changed our world.The Younger Dryas Event involved an
extremely abrupt climate change. The Earth had been on a warming trend from the
last Ice Age when it suddenly—theories range from hours to decades—was plunged
back into a deep freeze. Big things happened. Earth-shaking things. Huge forests
in Scandinavia were replaced by glacial tundra (this is where a plant named Dryas octopetala grew, giving the
Younger Dryas event its name). Glaciers formed or snowfalls increased in
mountain ranges around the world. Unusual layers and deposits formed in
Northern Europe. The Atlantic oceanic conveyor shut down, causing immediate
climate change. The atmosphere became filled with dust, most originating from
deserts in Asia. Extreme drought hit the Levant. The Huelmo/Mascardi Cold
Reversal in the Southern Hemisphere ended at the same time. Some areas show
evidence of great floods. The Clovis Culture and many of the large animal species
in North America went extinct.What caused it?Theories range from a comet or
asteroid impact to a major plasma discharge from the Sun to the collapse of the
North America ice sheets or massive volcanoes. Possibly a one-two punch or
combination of these events. But whatever happened, it may have ended these
mysterious early advanced civilizations suddenly and permanently.But wouldn’t we have heard
something about these great civilizations if they actually existed?Maybe we have.Greek philosopher Plato's Timaeus and Critias, written in 360 BC, contain the earliest references to a
great global power called Atlantis or Poseid. The accounts say that Plato heard
the story from the Athenian statesman, Solon, who had in turned heard the
accounts from an Egyptian priests who claimed this great civilization had been
destroyed some 9,000 years earlier.Other legends refer to a similar
society with a parallel history called Mu or Lemuria.Do I believe in Atlantis? No, not
really. What I can believe is that a civilization or civilizations once existed
that inspired the legends and the ancient accounts. Maybe a civilization that
was connected to Gobleki Tepe or that carved a magnificent lion out of granite
in North Africa thousands of years before it became known as The Sphinx.Yes. That, I can completely buy
into.What’s past is prologue? Well,
maybe what’s in our past might just inspire events in our future. Maybe what
happened 12,000 years ago might have future repercussions for us as a species.
Or may have affected all of history in ways we aren’t even aware of. Our past
and our future may be irrevocably intertwined.And wouldn’t that make a great premise for a
Science Fiction Romance series? (wink, wink)I’ll be revealing a little more on
this topic in an upcoming blog, Part II: Legends and Prophecies.Have a great week.

Friday, November 14, 2014

I tried.I really tried to love INTERSTELLAR.I mean, what’s not to love?Matthew
McConaughey and a host of Hollywood A-listers.A big concept with science at its heart.Stunning visuals.Heart-pounding
action.Super-cool robots. Did I mention Matthew
McConaughey?

But like a lot of arranged marriages, this
one failed despite everyone’s best efforts to match audience and film.The intended was certainly handsome enough,
but the pairing lacked the necessary chemistry.

First of all, you should know I’m not a
detail-oriented person.Really.I spend my hard-earned cash in an actual
movie theater nearly every week because I love completely immersing myself in
the film experience for two hours (or, in this case, three), giving myself over
to the filmmaker and the world he or she has created.I often have to see a movie more than once to
get the details I need for a review because the first time around I’m too much
into the total experience to grab them.So it takes a lot to yank me out of the story and make me go, “Huh?” in
the middle of the film.

Writer/director Christopher Nolan (THE DARK
KNIGHT trilogy, MAN OF STEEL) gave me plenty of absolutely incredible moments
of wonder in his film—dust storms overwhelming a weary town, Saturn and her
rings, a spherical (!) wormhole in black space, distant mountains on a planet
far, far away that turn out to be . . . well, I won’t spoil that for you.But missed details of science or logic
just kept grabbing me by the back of the collar and snatching me up out of my
comfortable place in the world Nolan had established.

Some examples:A blight has destroyed all the wheat in the
world, we’re told at the beginning of the film.All that’s left is corn.(No
mention is made of the many other grains humans grow, but okay.)In one early scene, McConaughey’s character,
Cooper, and John Lithgow, who plays his curmudgeonly father-in-law (terrific,
even if his character is a cliché) look over to a neighbor’s field, which is on
fire.“Blight?” Cooper asks, referring
perhaps to a leftover field of wheat.“No,”
FIL answers.“They say that’s the last
crop of okra.Ever.”

Okra?Really??I mean, how many people
who see this film will even know what okra is?Only those of us here in the South (and quite a few people in Africa,
but this film isn’t about them, as we’ll see later) will miss it when it goes,
trust me.And I just spent three minutes
thinking about okra when I should have been paying attention to the film.

Okay, I just get over that when, at the end
of a tough day, Cooper and FIL sit down on the porch to relax with a nice, cold
beer.Beer.In a commercial bottle, mind you.No shortage there, apparently, though the
world seems awfully short of other things.And beer is made of what?Yeah, wheat.Yes, it can be made of other things—sorghum, most notably, or millet—but
corn not so much.How about some good
ole white lightnin’?That would make more sense!And, again, I’ve spent
two minutes thinking about beer.

The “secret” agency that sponsors humanity’s
last-ditch mission to search out a new planet for colonizing?NASA.Right.When even now, NASA is
losing ground to other nations in the space race.And this is all of humanity we’re talking
about.Shouldn't it be a joint
task force of some kind?

They still have computers in this limited
future, used mostly to run automated farm equipment, but even so.Yet the most important intellectual endeavor of
our history is undertaken with chalk on a blackboard, with not a computer in
sight.Or is this just the way
theoretical physicists work?

I’m no scientist, but even I can tell you
what conditions you might find on a planet circling close to a black hole.Think the moon
has an effect on tides?My decision regarding
that planet would be to move on.But, of
course, that would make for a boring movie, wouldn’t it?

As for a scientist found all alone on an
ice-bound planet after years in cryo-sleep?Warning, warning!Danger, Will Robinson!Oh, but that’s right.His robot is ALL BUSTED UP!If we had any sense we’d be firing all thrusters right now.

Then there is the scientific coup-de-grace.**SPOILER ALERT** To save the human race, our
heroes must enter a black hole and transmit data back out of it.At first it’s just the robot that must
survive long enough to do this (unlikely enough—NOTHING escapes a black hole,
not even light), but then, of course, Cooper is drawn in, too.Instead of certain death, he finds himself in
a “three-dimensional construct of five-dimensional space”, according to the
robot, who somehow is in there with him.And what does it adjoin?His
daughter’s bedroom!So he can
communicate with Earth!Yay!

I’m sorry, I’ll put up with a lot, but not if
it’s supposed to be based on science as we know it.There’s a bunch of stuff here about solving
the relationship between gravity and time, and something about the power of
love which makes little sense.I saw the
movie twice and I’m still not convinced.It’s not like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, in which there was plenty of room
for interpretation.Here we’re given a
construct in detail.It just doesn’t
hold up. (And if it was the basis of an SFR novel, the author wouldn't survive the savaging she'd receive from SF fans.)

Lest you miss this film thinking there’s
nothing of worth to be seen, let me just say there is much that touches the
heart in INTERSTELLAR.Matthew
McConaughey’s Cooper is wonderful—conflicted, complex, wearing his emotions on
his weather-beaten face for all to see, and yet yearning for the stars.He’s the perfect metaphor for our human
aspirations.Jessica Chastain, as his
grown daughter, Murphy, captures her anger and drive as well as her lingering
hope.All of the supporting cast is stellar,
and the human part of the story works well when Nolan is not busy lecturing. Then there's the scene which gives "taking a flying @#@#$ at a rolling donut" a whole new meaning--worth the price of admission in and of itself.

If Christopher Nolan had let an editor have
a bit more time with his ungainly giant of a film, INTERSTELLAR might yet have
found a way into my heart despite its many flaws.

Monday, November 10, 2014

Over the weekend I had the treat of seeing the just-released motion picture, Interstellar. I've been looking forward to it hitting the theaters for months now, and it didn't disappoint. (Although I don't think Donna got as much from this epic feature film as I did, but hopefully she'll be blogging a detailed review later.)

I went to a very early afternoon matinee, thinking we'd miss the huge evening crowds...and it was packed. Packed! True there's been a lot of hype about this film, but to see it pulling in the crowds at 1:10 PM on a spectacular New Mexico fall afternoon was amazing. And the audience was a smorgasbord of young, middle aged, elderly, female, male, single viewers, couples and large families. The draw seemed to cover the entire spectrum.

Though this film was decidedly Sci-Fi (with no meaty Romance), human love was a powerful motivator in the story, and the hero's ultimate decision is made for love. I don't want to dish out too many spoilers, but the heart of this story is about staying with those you love, or leaving them to embark on a dangerous mission that may save not only them, but all of humanity.

The choices the characters must make are heartbreaking (yeah, it's one of those films where you hope the lights don't come up too soon) but the final choice the hero makes reflects a metamorphosis for his and other characters.

But the movie isn't the subject of my blog. What I've been left to ponder is why blockbusters like Interstellar, Star Wars, Avatar, the Star Trek franchise, and Guardians of the Galaxy garner the rabid fan followings they do when SF with or without the "R" struggle so miserably on the small screen and in literature.

If it was ONLY the books that fail to have a large following, I'd say it's because the visual sensawonder fans see on the screen doesn't translate to print, but that doesn't explain why quality SF/R never seems to get a foothold in the ratings and--even when it's a great show--being canceled before it can even complete its first season.

You all think you know what show I'm talking about, don't you?

Well, you might be surprised. I'm talking about Defying Gravity.

DG had everything that Interstellar has, except perhaps a mindblowing journey into a wormhole. It dealt with a dying Earth, human connections, the power of love, a mission in space fraught with danger, deep space mysteries and a secret that's kept from the astronauts.

And, IMHO, it did it all with a far superior sound track and equally impressive, if not better, sets.

Want to see what I mean? Here's just a little taste:

And here's a longer tribute someone did for the ship, Antares (yes, the same name as the rocket that just exploded on launch from Virginia). I think the effects are eye-popping. Better than Interstellar or Gravity by a long run.

The creator of this tribute went a little overboard on length and repeated shots of Antares, but do check out those strikingly real scenes of Earth and space and astronauts going about their work. Note the Landing Vehicles (ALVs) for Venus, Pluto and other planets, the communication dishes, the airlocks, the storage pods. The detail is simply amazing.

Yet despite great characters, a riveting plot and state-of-the-art special effects, this TV show was canceled before it could even complete it's first season. (Though the entire first season, which at least ends with a bit of a resolution, is available on DVD.)

So the big question I've been asking myself is what does the big screen have that books and small screen don't?

I think the answer is most likely a massive promotional budget. The audience shows up in droves because they've seen the trailers and promos and their interest is piqued.

A monster promotional budget is something we're never going to have as authors, but that still leaves the underlying paradox. If there's such a massive audience out there interested in space, science fiction and the future, why are they only attracted to the big feature films? Why aren't these millions of fans equally interested in watching SF/R on television and reading about it in books?

It truly is a paradox. But one I'm going to spend some time on as I put some hard thought into what new ways there may be to promote a SFR series.

Friday, November 7, 2014

Creating the “perfect” SFR heroine can be a
challenge, but it’s not that much different than crafting the ideal historical
or paranormal heroine.All romance
readers expect their heroines to be beautiful, spunky and intelligent, the
equal in almost every way to the alpha heroes of the novels they read.

Unlike historical or contemporary heroines,
however, SFR gals tend to be active players in what are currently male-dominated
worlds—the worlds of space exploration, science, military conflict, long-distance
trade, undercover espionage, even clandestine alien hunting. Note that I said currently.In many SFR stories, the future looks quite
different, allowing our heroines to move more easily in those worlds.

Operating in these environments requires a
special kind of woman.Typically, SFR
writers respond with a kickass heroine to carry the story, a take-no-prisoners,
command-grade female strong enough to stand up to any starship captain or space
pirate.Indeed she may be one herself,
and she’s got the hard shell to go with the rank.

Only one of my heroines in the Interstellar Rescue series—Rescue agent
Rayna Carver of Fools Rush In—really fits
that mold.Lana Matheson, the FBI agent
of Trouble in Mind, certainly knows
how to kick ass, but she is constrained both by discipline and certain
vulnerabilities.And Asia Burdette, the
heroine of the first book in the series, Unchained
Memory, has quieter, deeper strengths that only emerge in the crucible of
crisis.

My heroines are very different from each
other.But there are some things I would
hope none of them would EVER do:

1) Giggle.These are women, not girls.They
may laugh out loud, guffaw, chortle, chuckle, grin, snort or ROTFLTAO, but they
will NOT giggle.Ever.

See? MUCH better!

2) Wear inappropriate clothing/shoes.At the risk of drawing the attention of
certain trolls-who-will-not-be-named, let me just point out to all who suffer
under this misconception that it is not
possible to fight effectively in four-inch stilettos.Well, you could take them off and stab
someone with them, but otherwise, no.It’s
not possible to run in them, either.It
can’t be comfortable to sit at the controls of a starship for hours (or days)
in a skin-tight leather jumpsuit.Or do
much of anything in a pencil skirt.So,
sorry, guys, my women won’t be dressed that way.And while I’m at it, here’s a tip for film and
TV costumers:hard-soled shoes that echo
in empty warehouses will get your cops and agents killed.Put them in some sensible shoes, will ya?

3) Wait passively for rescue.I put my heroines in some tight spots—captured
by black ops kidnappers, tortured by vengeful aliens, hunted by alien spies—and,
yes, sometimes they need help from their heroes.But usually by the time the knight in shining
armor gets there, the damsel in distress has escaped the dungeon and nearly
made it out of the castle.My heroines
take an active role in their own rescue, no matter how grim the situation or
how minimal their “fighting” skills.(Asia, for example, is not a trained martial artist, but she carries—and
knows how to use—a gun.)

4) Back down in the face of intimidation.We expect our heroines to stand up to the
villain—that’s the very definition of kickass.But intimidation can take many forms.If we’re talking about the interaction between hero and heroine and what
constitutes sexual tension, that “intimidation” can even be completely
unconscious, a matter of body language and chemistry.My heroines have to stand their ground under
the onslaught of the emotion churned up by the nearness of their heroes.For women who may have dismissed such emotion
before, or, worse, been hurt by it, this is an act of courage.

5) Finally, my heroines will never, ever give
up hope.At first glance my heroines may
not seem to be optimists.They certainly
don’t look at the world through any kind of rose-colored filter.Tragedy early in life has taught all of them harsh
lessons about reality.Still, they all
believe it is possible for good to triumph over evil, though they would likely
snort in derision to hear it put that way. When things look bleak, they push on. They may struggle, but they survive and overcome.And in the end, they choose to continue to fight
on the side of what is right, helping others to find a similar kind of peace.

There are probably a few other things my
heroines wouldn’t do—listen to Barry Manilow, develop an addiction to escargot—but
I wouldn’t swear by it.Characters
sometimes have a mind of their own. I will insist on the fundamentals, however.
Some things are non-negotiable.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

First things first. This was how my post intended to start - with an admission of fail. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but this month has not started as intended. I'd planned to do NaNoWriMo, which was unusual in itself. Normally I just sign up at the last minute with an idea that muse just won't drop. This year, I plotted...and the day before NaNo started I knew I wasn't going to do it. I just wasn't feeling it. In fact, I haven't felt like writing since I did Camp NaNoWriMo back in July. Which might be part of the problem.

So what will I be doing instead? Well, I haven't done much reading this year, and as a result very little reviewing. I therefore nominated November as my NaNoReMo - reading, reviewing, revising and researching. I have over 300 titles on my Kindle, I have two shorts and a novella that need overhauling before they can go off for edits, and I made a vow to do research and reading on marketing (at which I suck so badly). That should keep me busy, give me more titles to release next year, a better marketing plan (ha!), do some payback to my fellow authors, and clear my TBR list a bit. Plus I have another book release this month and next, so there will be plenty of blog posts to write and one tour and one book blitz to organize--my last release is less than a week before Christmas, so I'm just going to do a release day blast rather than a tour. I should imagine everyone will be too broke after the holidays to be book buying.

In the meantime, because I wasn't writing and I have upcoming releases, I did a big (and overdue) update of all my social media platforms - my website and blog, my Author App and book cover albums on my Facebook page, added new first chapters to my WattPad account, and pinned my missing covers to Pinterest. I also started putting various videos on YouTube into soundtracks for each of my books. But in the process, I decided it was time for an overhaul of my blog. At a friend's suggestion I went looking for new blog templates and found a couple I liked.

I created a private test blog to experiment with (I NEVER make adjustments directly to my blog without testing, and without doing a full backup of my template and content just in case. I do this as routine once a month anyway) and discovered that because these templates weren't Blogger's own, it wouldn't let me change anything in the template settings like colour, width etc...you know, all the really important stuff. *rolls eyes* So I considered what it was about the two templates I liked. Turned out all I really wanted was the slideshow facility and the drop down menu (my page section is cluttered, and I've actually run out of pages to use. I'll come back to the drop down menu at a later date). Creating the slideshow initially turned out a whole lot more complicated than I thought, but perfect fodder for a blog post.

Firstly, you'll need to create some images for the slideshow if you don't already have some. I used PAINT.NET to make some promo pieces - my book covers on a fancy background, with one or two review quotes for each. I'm not going to go through making those (unless someone asks for them - I had enough of a nightmare doing them in the first place!)

So if you go into Design (top right corner) on your Blogger blog, then Layout (near the bottom on the left hand side), you'll get this -

You'll see the little Add A Gadget widgets. Click one of those and you get a popup box. Scroll down that and you'll find Slideshow in the list -

If you set your Slideshow gadget to configure to this album, you get a teeny, tiny slideshow which you can't change the size of. Fine if you just want thumbnails of a photo album, perhaps in a narrow column on your blog, but totally inadequate to my promo pictures. BUT, if you look to the right hand side of that screenshot, you'll see Link to this album. Click that to get either a share link for social media platforms like Facebook, or HTML code to paste into your website or blog (for Blogger, use Add A Gadget but choose HTML instead of Slideshow from the gadget list). Or click Embed Slideshow and you get this -

Now you can see some options for Autoplay, size etc, and you copy and paste the HTML into the HTML Add A Gadget instead of using Slideshow. It's a perfectly serviceable slideshow. But it didn't autoreplay, which frustrated me. As soon as you reach the end of the sequence it stops, unless you press play again.

It wasn't doing what I wanted, and I couldn't find a way round it, short of putting multiple images of the same pictures into the slideshow. There had to be a better way.

I was given a link to this site - http://www.cincopa.com/ You have to sign up to an account but it's free (if you want extra features, you have to pay but you don't necessarily need them. Currently I have a logo free version for 30 days - what the logo will look like after that expires I don't know). I'm not going to go through setting this up because it is really simple to do and the site takes you through each step to creating your own slideshow, plus you can preview it before using to make any tweaks. And this is mine -

If you have any questions about the process or I haven't been clear on anything, please feel free to ask!

Additional: One thing I promised to do after my Dreaded Sales Word post was tell you about my sales. Well, they were down for October. In fact, I had no sales at all for the first week of the month, though this was slightly compensated for by a spike after BristolCon. My blog stats were also very down on previous months (they've been increasing steadily each month over the past two years, though I had a big dip back in April). This despite several guest posts, and taking part in several blog hops and online events. The fact that both have dropped this month despite extra efforts on all sides to raise both, I put down to the time of year. All the events (particularly giveaways) plus the holiday may mean book buying and online activity is less (I'm guessing here. I really haven't been selling books long enough to see patterns much). So with two more releases to go and Christmas approaching, I'm going to be watching both with interest. I'm also posting about how BristolCon went over at the SFR Brigade blog today if you're curious about the cold hard details.

Happenings

When Dark Falls is up for pre-order and releases on the 21st! Woo hoo! My superheroes are coming to save the city...or will they?!

In a city where Dark Technologies Inc. now runs the show, Kadie Williams has more immediate concerns than the fall of Blaze, their guardian superhero. Almost every morning for the last few months she's woken up with cuts and bruises on her body and no idea how she got them. There are no nightmares. No evidence that she sleepwalks or any sign of a break in. And nothing to tell her who's been cleaning up after her. As just one of thousands of civilians conscripted to slave away in the labs of Professor Dark, she knew there'd be trouble ahead. But she never expected it to be so bad, or so personal.

Desperate for answers, Kadie looks to the new defender of the night, the only person who can hinder the total domination of Professor Dark—Nocturnelle. The mysterious vigilante superhero came from nowhere with her cybernetic sidekick Shadow, set on putting an end to the brutality of Dark's regime. But as his laboratories work on a new secret super-weapon, Nocturnelle and Shadow may not be enough to save Nephopolis...or to save Kadie either.

***

I'm so excited! And this leaves me with just my futuristic UF No Angel to go before the end of year (pssst, that releases the 19th December, just in time for some Christmas reading). I'll finish 2014 with six titles released this year, and eleven since my debut in May 2012. And after that I have a WHOLE FOUR MONTHS until my next scheduled release. Or will I...? *snigger*

Ping Pong

Awesome Halloween photo Donna, and so much easier than having to clean all that makeup off later, huh?

About Spacefreighters Lounge

Hosted by 5 Science Fiction Romance authors with 8 RWA Golden Heart finals and a RITA final between them. We aim to entertain with spirited commentary on the past, present, and future of SFR, hot topics, and our take on Science Fiction and SFR books, television, movies and culture.

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Welcome to Spacefreighters' Lounge

Pull up a hoverchair and have a Billins. :)

This blog is named in honor of the seedy tavern on the planet Dartis in Inherit the Stars where Laurie's MC Sair originally began his journey--before her critiquers compelled her to trash the Star Wars cantina opening. [See post entitled: From Whence Came the Nameclick to see the excerpt.]

Not being one to give up on a theme, a new Spacefreighters Lounge manifested itself on the planet Banna in a later draft--reincarnated as a slightly more respectable locale.